A random collection of over 1910 books and audiobooks authored by or about my transgender, intersex sisters, and gender-nonconforming persons all over the world. I read some of them, and I was inspired by some of them. I met some of the authors and heroines, some of them are my best friends, and I had the pleasure and honor of interviewing some of them. If you know of any transgender biography that I have not covered yet, please let me know.
Original title: "Újjászületők: nemváltoztató élettörténetek" (Born again: Gender reassignment life stories) by Ferenc Vidra Szabó and Gábor Hero.
The book follows the stages of gender reassignment and contains a couple of life stories based on interviews conducted by Ferenc Vidra Szabó. The essence of these subjective stories, the psychological, medical and social summation of the topic processed in the chapter is outlined in the short introductions written by Gábor Hero, who leads the chapters. At the end of the volume, we can also read a compilation about the legal framework of gender reassignment.
The first chapter, Wayfinders, introduces three teenagers who have recently discovered the reason for their differences since they were little. An important lesson is that this discovery – and the search for the causes of previously experienced otherness or exclusion – is linked to sexual maturation. However, signs of different gender identity can appear as early as two years of age.
2021,
Ferenc Vidra Szabó,
Gábor Hero,
Hungarian,
Original title: "Inkognitó" (Incognito) by Tibor Noé Kiss.
Tibor/Noémi has visited the women's section of a shoe store for the first time. Another customer groaned and called her names, the salesperson complimented the choice of boots and smiled. Tibor/Noémi tried to smile too. That was four weeks ago. Today she would go out into town in boots. But now she sits alone in an armchair with her body, and each hates the other.
Incognito is an impressive depiction of how a football-loving youth finds a stranger in herself and her body. It is a coming-of-age story, a coming-of-the-closet story, and a skilled, frantic novel in its minimalist conciseness about creating one's identity in the cross-pressures of one's own feelings and the surprise and disapproval of the surrounding society.
2010,
Hungarian,
Tibor Noé Kiss,
Original title: "Saját ketrec" (My Cage) by Blanka Vay.
Blanka Vay had to answer one short, undecided question before Christmas 2015, but her whole life depended on it. More precisely, two lives. One previous and one new. The answer, however, swept away the old one like a flood. My Cage is the story of this answer to why a thirty-six-year-old married man decides to give up his comfortable, privileged social status and identify as a woman and choose himself and life instead.
And at the same time, this book tells us a lot about things: women, men, masculine women and feminine men, family, real friends, companions, loneliness, giving up, failures and perseverance, realizing and realizing dreams, transforming the body and getting to know a new one, men's glances, women's smiles, pants and stockings with pockets, first dances and first dates, the intimacy of hugs, and all the while talking a lot about gender roles, social expectations, politics, rights, Berlin, the island peak of Kisorosz, and contemporary Hungary. These are familiar stories.
My Cage is an honest, courageous, ruthless and funny book about getting to know ourselves, about acceptance and rebirth, about wanting to live happily.
2021,
Blanka Vay,
Hungarian,
Original title: "A lélek műtétei" (Surgeries of the soul) by Judit Takács.
Our book was produced as part of the research entitled Transsexuals in the Health and Social Care System within the framework of the Social Inclusion - 2003 program. This was the first descriptive research on transsexual people in Hungary, using social science approaches, which sought to provide a comprehensive picture of the social treatment of the phenomenon of transsexuality by exploring the official and health options for gender reassignment.
The target group of transsexuals in our study was people who entered or intended to enter the health care system, who defined themselves as transsexual now or in the past, or who had a need to change their gender. In addition to studies based on interviews with stakeholders and professionals with practical experience with transsexuality, the volume includes, among others, excerpts from studies by Harold Garfinkel and Sam Dylan More, the results of our questionnaire study, recommendations to social policymakers to develop good practice, and the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on transsexual people.
2006,
Hungarian,
Judit Takács,
Original title: "Holnaptól nő leszek" (I'll be a woman from tomorrow)
'I was born with a male look, but I lived with a female soul. I got married and had a wife and two kids. I tried to raise my daughter and son as a father, but I still approached them as a woman.
Bea's diary from Gyula, a town in Békés County, Hungary, is a poignant account of the year and a half it took her to realize who she really was. She was determined to undergo operations to change her gender, get rid of her masculinity, and become physically female.
The author leads us step by step on this strange path, and we can find out how her decision was received by her wife, family, and colleagues. There was plenty of torment, as she was the first in Hungary to change her gender. She started writing the diary as a man, but finished as Bea.'
2002,
Bea Kútvölgyi,
Hungarian,
"A dán lány" is the Hungarian language edition of The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff.
Having gender reassignment surgery in the 1930s was an unusual and sensational affair, and the man who took the step to do so was the Danish painter Einar Mogens Andreas Wegener, who after the operation took the name of Lili Elbe.
The operation took place at the Institute for Sexology in Berlin, where the male organs were removed. The surgery was performed by Felix Abraham at the recommendation of Magnus Hirschfeld.
Einar Wegener was married to the beautiful, celebrated artist Gerda Wegener. They lived in a highly unusual marriage. Their life fate is told in this book, which is a fiction novel based on authentic events and diary entries from Einar Wegener.
2012,
David Ebershoff,
Hungarian,
Lili Elbe,
